Entrepreneurship will test your why

Every day I wake up, and the first battle is internal. I’m fighting my own negativity — the learned hesitation that starts with the first “no” we hear as a child and gets fed daily by failure, comparison, headlines and doubt.

What people don’t put on a pitch deck is that entrepreneurship is problem-solving under pressure, and a lot of that pressure is emotional. You have to repeatedly speak your vision back to yourself, campaign that vision back to your team and stay relentlessly focused on why you’re doing this.

The inbox, the opinions, the distractions, the curveballs — it’s easy to get ping-ponged around and call it progress.

Recently I went back to Arkansas State University — my alma mater — to talk about entrepreneurial mindset. I spoke on a panel at the NEA Catalyst: Economic Development & Leadership Forum, and I joined a class session where the conversation wasn’t about hype. It was about reality: the pressure, the uncertainty, the discipline and the commitment it takes to build something that lasts.

I’ve been building companies for more than 25 years, and my work today spans multiple lanes — as co-founder and chief growth officer at AdFury.ai, as the founder of PodcastVideos.com, and as the owner of Doing Business in Bentonville.

One of the biggest milestones to date was WhyteSpyder, a company I co-founded, being acquired by London-based Ascential in 2021. The acquisition was rewarding. Then it was right back to work.

Northwest Arkansas’ proximity to Walmart, Tyson Foods, J.B. Hunt and the biggest retail engine on the planet is an advantage. But advantage only turns into outcomes when your internal operating system is strong.

A vague why makes a founder reactive. The mood of the market swings, and the plan changes. One tense customer email lands, and confidence drops. A competitor makes noise, and the team pivots. A slow week hits, and suddenly every new idea feels urgent.

I’ve watched our region waste real opportunity because we want the outcome without the discomfort. A transactional mindset stays stuck on, “How do I get this buyer to say yes?” A founder mindset asks, “What problem am I solving that’s painful enough to build a company around?”

A clear why gives you a filter, creates discipline and forces better decisions. It gives you something to stand on at 4 a.m. when the brain starts replaying every risk, every open loop and every hard conversation on the calendar.

Clarity doesn’t make entrepreneurship easy. But it changes the question in your head from “How do I avoid this?” to “Yes. This is worth enduring.”

That’s the difference between starting something and building something. Most people don’t fail because they run out of ideas — they tap out because it stays hard longer than expected. They think something is wrong with them when the struggle gets heavy. They assume other entrepreneurs have better luck or some special gift. More often, they’ve fought like hell outside of the spotlight.

You weren’t there at 4 a.m. when they were staring at the ceiling, running worst-case scenarios. You weren’t there on the holidays when they were still working. You weren’t there on the calls trying to buy time — pitching, negotiating, asking for one more week, one more month.

Then one day it’s you. The pressure is yours because the vision is yours. And it loops back to the same place it always does: the first battle each morning is with yourself — your fear, your doubt, your discipline, your resolve.

Editor’s note: Eric Howerton is co-founder and chief growth officer at AdFury.ai. He’s also the owner of PodcastVideos.com and Doing Business in Bentonville. The opinions expressed are those of the author.